>The worse you can argue is a violation of hasagas gevul (copy right) there is no theft and if the movie is not in theaters here how are they losing profit?

HA!, why dont you tell that to the movie companies and everyone that is involved in created that movie. And if its not there in theaters, wait till it gets to DVD.

>Downloading a movie and not watching it in a theater is not stealing from the theater company's.. the movie is OWNED by the production company..

Two seperate entities are involved in the services. One is the the theater chains, the other is the companies that are contracted out to make the dvd's themselves, including a third company that creates the packaging. Yes, the movie itself is owned by the productions company, but seperate companies make money of them as well.

>You cant in any way claim that one is stealing from the movie theater UNLESS YOU SLIP IN WITHOUT PAYING!

The production company licenses the movies out to movie theaters, not to your private computers. When you bypass the theaters, they are obviously loosing the money that was intended to them BY THE MOVIE COMPANIES. Its like I decide to open up an art gallery with my art pieces and charge for admission and you decide to somehow take pictures of all the art and post it on the net. So instead of me making money as well as the art gallery , now everyone sees it for free which was not the intent.

I wont go to the movies EITHER WAY! (I download subtitles and patch it due to my bad hearing)

I used to be one of the biggest movie rippers / distributors on IRC years ago.. I had over 800 dvd rips on CD (back in the day this was one of the biggest collections considering it took 30 min to burn a CD!)

This you csn argue is wrong and stealing.. I havent ripped or distrubuted movies since the FBI got on my case and the international motion picture association of america threatend to sue me ;)

But arguing that one is supposed to pay for something and did not pay but did not cause any financial danage or the like is stealing is not true.. you can say its wrong but thats it.

Its comparing slipping into the zoo for free (stealing) and walking around the zoo fence and looking at the animals (not stealing)

They wouldent get my money anyways! have not stepped foot into a theater in 5 years ;)

Its called common sence. It is not your movie to take, or watch or distribute over the internet.

If a zoo doesn't care and haves fences near the parking lot where everyone can see, then that is their problem. Clearly, they don't do that for the exact reason you gave. The movie industry makes it specific not to bring some video camera into the theater and then distribute it out, or even watch something that someone else got illegally.

The movies weren't produced so you could watch them for free. Would you be able to look the people involved in making these movies in the eye and tell them that you watched their movies without paying?

my friend's brother told me that when he was in gush one of the ramim gave a shiur on copying (don't remember if it was music or movies). everyone was afraid to go to the shiur because they assume he would say it is assur.

apparently he actually said it is not forbidden, mainly because

1) halakhah does not recognize intellectual property [i don;t understand this because early haskamot were issued to books, in part, to serve as copyright protection; so this is an example of recognizing intellectual property.]

2) dina de-malkhuta dina only applies in instances where a particular law is regularly and equally enforced (which is not the case with pirating).

Thats the spirit. Next time companies protest to us taking their material, we will just answer back that our religious laws don't respect your intellectual property. Great way to be a light to the nations. If anything, technical halacha should be scraped and be a little more ethical to our "gentile" neighbors.

>dina de-malkhuta dina only applies in instances where a particular law is regularly and equally enforced (which is not the case with pirating).

It is obviously incredibly difficult to inforce this law, but obviously there IS an attempt. Remember Napster? There are even sometimes sweeps in 3rd world places where police raid pirated movies. Some college students have been sued by companies. The fact that it cant be enforced 100% is irrelvant. Also, you see companies making it harder and harder to copy music for instance.

1) if you don't like the way halakhah works, that ok. i don't get it sometimes either. but that's the way it is.

2) why are you making this a jew vs. gentile issue. i never mentioned that the religion of the offended party factored into the equation as described to me. as far as i understood (but i could very well have been wrong), the practical application of the shiur applied to jewish and gentile discs.

regarding enforcement, as far as i know you have a 99.999999% chance of not getting caught if you are burning for non-commercial purposes.